


Weaving the Future

by MarsDragon



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4473101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarsDragon/pseuds/MarsDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after Kefka's defeat, Terra is living peacefully in Moblitz when there's a sudden shortage....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weaving the Future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skyshores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyshores/gifts).



The caves under Moblitz were cool and dark in the heat of summer, when even the monsters sought shade over human flesh. The children were quiet as they bent over their small chalkboards and practised their letters while Katarin tended to her baby, Eva, and Duane snored in one of the rough little beds. Terra sat in her familiar old chair with the unsteady leg, feet curled under her as she patched clothes the children wore through so quickly. The lamps were low - oil was rare now, they couldn't afford to waste it - and cast their soft, butter-yellow light over everything. Not that they had butter any more. 

Terra squinted at the fresh calico patch on Celesh's dress, giving a little tug to test it before tying and cutting the thread. Hopefully that repair would last longer than the previous one, which had worked for all of two days before the fabric had torn itself an even bigger hole right _below_ the stitches. Terra put the dress aside and picked up the next item, Sotheby's overalls with the worn seat, with a sigh. Keeping the children clothed was a never-ending struggle. They'd managed to scavenge enough clothes from the unlucky family's houses to make sure all the survivors had spares, but changing clothes every day could only get one so far. Terra spread the overalls out on her lap and considered. A spot on the right was nearly worn though, and some bits around it were looking weak...if she had the fabric, something to cover all of it would be ideal.... She reached down to the small basket of scraps she kept besides her chair.

Her fingers touched only wicker. Terra felt around in the basket for a bit before hauling it up to give it a proper look. 

Completely empty.

"Well, that stops that," she murmured. Really, she thought, she should have noticed sooner and prepared. But there was nothing for it now.

"Stops what, Mama?" Little Tilara asked, looking up from her board covered in doodles instead of letters. 

"Oh, just my mending," Terra replied. "I'm out of scraps, so I'll need to get more before I can fix up all the holes you keep making!"

"I didn't make any holes!" Isabella called out from across the room, with the fervent agreement of Perrine. Terra gave them both an indulgent smile. It was true, they didn't have anything to be repaired - this time.

"The chocobo caravan should be here soon, right?" Katarin finished changing Eva's diaper and covered a yawn. "Oh, I'm sleepy... Anyway, can't you get more from them?" She put the dirty diaper away to be washed later and put Eva in her basket before collapsing into the bed Duane was in. Eva let out a few short cries at her mother's disappearance before settling down to play with the wolf teeth and murussu scales hung above her.

"Don't sleep too much now, we need to do laundry and tend the garden when the heat dies down," Terra said. Katarin mumbled something that might've been assent and curled up with her face in Duane's shoulder. He never stirred. "And yes, I will get more when they stop by," she added, unsure if Katarin was still listening. The chocobo caravan was irregular, but they were some of the few traders that even bothered stopping by Moblitz. They had to have something. 

She turned to the rest of the children and raised her hand for attention. "All right, who wants to show Mama their hard work?"

"Me!" Me first!" "Me me me!"

\---

"10,000 gil for this? That's highway robbery!" 

"Take it or leave it, it's as low as I'll go." The trader settled back on his heels and crossed his arms, a wall of stubborn resolve. Behind him the chocobos pecked at the dry ground and tore up the remains of dead grasses while the apprentice traders tried to keep their packs contained. 

Terra frowned at the bundle of plain-woven and scratchy wool she was holding. Two years ago, before Kefka, it would have cost 10 or 20 gil at most. Even a year ago it would've just been a few thousand. Now... "6000 gil."

"10,000."

"8,000. You couldn't do this in Figaro!" 

"This ain't Figaro!" The trader snapped. "And that's why I'm giving you a discount - nice new fabric like this would be 12 or 15 thousand there! I try to be nice to you, living out in the wastes like this, taking care of all those children, but I have to keep myself in business!"

Terra clutched the fabric in her hands. If she bought it for full price, she wouldn't be able to afford more oil for the lamps. She'd already sold all the wolf pelts and murussu hides she'd gathered over the past months, there just wasn't any more gil. Her fingers worried at the rough wool. "9,000 and I escort you all the way to the Serpent Trench." She hated the idea of leaving the children again, but they'd managed under Duane and Katarin when Kefka was alive, they could do it now.

The trader hemmed and hawed. "Chocobos are pretty fast, you know...we got all the way here, after all...

"Don't you usually come with four chocobos? I only see three. Nighttime is dangerous this far out, isn't it?"

He grumbled and rubbed under his hat, looking sidelong at the three little chocobos he had. The apprentices looked back with pleading eyes. One of them was clearly favouring her right leg. Finally the trader finished grumbling to himself and said "All right, all right. But don't expect to get a deal like this again, you hear?" 

"Thank you very much," Terra said, a trifle shortly. "Feel free to stay in town overnight, we've fixed up a few of the houses. Now, I also need..." 

Later Terra led them to the spare house they'd managed to stabilize with Sabin and Edgar's help, where she left them to bed down in peace. The wool, lamp oil, dried fruits and honeycomb she left in the main caves before going off to see the garden everyone was working on before it got too hot. 

"Mama! Mama look!" 

"The squash are growing! They're keeping the ground nice and cool for the other plants!" 

Tilara and Sothby were on her almost before she could get in. Her hands found their heads and rubbed at their hair, that still-strange feeling called 'love' bubbling up in her chest. "They are? That's good. We'll have plenty to eat this winter."

"Not like before," Sothby said with utter seriousness. 

"That's right, not like that year. We'll never have a year like that again," Terra promised. "Now, I need to talk with Duane and Katarin. How about you go pull up all the weeds around the garden edge?" The pair nodded and raced off, full of energy.

Katarin was at the edge of the garden, explaining to the eldest two, Ayrton and Isabella, all the problems plants could suffer and how to treat them. Terra waited until she set them free and dragged her over to the lake where Duane was hauling as much water as the rest of the children could carry. "Listen," she started, "I'm going away for awhile. I know you can take care of the children, so just be careful and don't let any of them go out to the wastes, all right?"

"What?" Duane nearly dropped the water all over his shoes. "Where? Why? So suddenly!"

"It's not for long!" Terra waved her hands in front of her, trying to calm them down. Katarin was pale and wringing her hands. "I just have to escort the caravan to the Serpent Trench. There and back...a week or a week and a half at most. That's all."

"Well," Katarin said, "That's not so bad. Not like before. But _why_? They have chocobos!"

Terra bowed her head. Now that she was facing her children, it didn't feel like such a good deal after all. "They've already lost one, actually." That was the best reason. But now she had to tell the other one. "And...I promised to accompany them for a discount on some fabric. I had to, to be able to afford the oil...I even got some treats for the children." She sounded defensive, even to herself.

Duane frowned. "Just for a discount? How much were they even asking?"

"More than I wanted to pay." Terra left it at that. "Like I said, it won't be long, and I don't foresee any trouble. I just wanted to let you know." 

"You could have waited," Katarin said. "Won't Setzer be here soon? He should be able to get us something cheaper."

"Maybe, but we don't know if he'll be here next week or next month." Secretly Terra also doubted if Setzer would be able to get them something better. They were far from civilization...but the trader had always been honest and fair in his prices before. If he said plain wool was going for 12 to 15 thousand gil in Figaro, he probably wasn't lying. She forced a smile onto her face. "If we wait too long, Sothby will be running around naked! We'll just ask him to try and bring some more next time." Setzer didn't have the time to come by more than once every few months - the _Falcon_ was too important to keeping supplies running between the big cities - so they mostly relied on the chocobo caravan. 

"I suppose you're right." Katarin still looked a little downcast. Terra she she tried not to show it, but she had hated the idea of Terra leaving more than anyone else. "Just be careful, all right? You can't cast Cure anymore."

"If the caravan's gonna charge that much, maybe we should ask Setzer to make a special run..." Duane said, half to himself. "If the kids keep going through clothes like they have, we'll need lots of patches."

"Duane!" Terra folder her arms and looked sharply at him. "We can't just ask Setzer to make special runs, even if he would do it. It's /clothes/, not food or medicine. Whatever happens, we can hold out until he comes back normally. Right?" She relaxed as Duane nodded, a bit shamefaced. "Now, let's finish up in the garden before it gets too hot!"

\---

A gust of wind that nearly knocked the smaller children over and a roar like one of the eight dragons could only mean one thing: the _Falcon_ was here. The kids ran toward the landing zone, shrieking and stumbling, with Terra limping behind, calling out for them to be _careful_ and to be sure to wait for everything to stop before swarming the door. It was impossible to tell if any of them had heard.

But no one was hurt, and soon the children were scrambling up the ladder and through the open door to the inside. Ayrton was thoughtful enough to wait for Terra and help her up, mindful of her injured right leg. She rubbed at his hair with a "Thank you," and he squirmed away, face bright red. 

"What's that, our heroine can't climb a ladder anymore?" 

"Setzer! And Celes!" Terra called happily as the pair swept into the room. She dragged them both into a welcoming embrace, and if Celes was a little stiff still, it was fine. "A gigantoad surprised me a week or so ago, on my way back from the Serpent Trench. Don't worry," she added at the shadow that passed over their expressions, "it's just a scratch. It should heal in a few more days."

"Why were you even going to the Serpent Trench?" Celes asked. "There's nothing there for you, is there?"

"Mama went to protect the traders!" Perrine butted in. She was always on the look-out to show off in front of Celes, who had made quite the impression on her previous visits. "She was gone for two weeks, but none of us were scared at all!"

"That's very brave of you," Celes said, and Perrine beamed with pride. "It sounds like Terra has a lot of talk about with Setzer and me. Should we retire to the sitting room?"

Setzer waved them off with a breezy gesture. "Work out what you need amongst yourselves, ladies, and the _Falcon_ will carry it for you. I have no head for the details."

"We'll catch up later, then," Terra said. She really did need to speak with Celes. Turning to the kids with her arms crossed for extra authority, she said, "Listen up, all of you. Stay here, be good, listen to Mr. Setzer, and _don't go in the engine room_ , got it?" She got a chorus of 'yes, Mama's back and let her arms drop and addressed Setzer again. "I leave them in your care. Don't teach them how to gamble." 

"Ah, but gambling is one of life's great pleasures-"

Terra interrupted with a sharp poke to the sternum. "Don't."

Setzer humped, which Terra took as agreement. They left the children romping around below-decks and begging Setzer for stories, and Terra could only hope he'd have the sense to keep things clean. And perhaps not tell that story of how she'd tripped over her own feet and tumbled down an entire floor of Kefka's Tower in a fight against a couple Ahrimans. It wasn't as if she had been alone, Edgar and Mog had been falling down right next to her!

The sitting room was bright and clean, if already getting worn around the edge. There was hot tea on the table in anticipation of their arrival, complete with a hopeful three cups. Terra and Celes settled down across from each other and poured themselves a hot drink.

"Well," Terra said. "How is everyone?" 

Celes sighed and rubbed at her temple, then began to talk. She told Terra about Cyan, rebuilding Doma and refusing to call himself king, preferring 'shogun', about Relm and Strago living peacefully in Thamasa where Relm had found herself what she called a 'boyfriend' (a boy she went on walks with and occasionally held hands) possibly just to make Strago angry, about Sabin and Gau wandering the world together, about Edgar ruling Figaro and Locke being his distant eyes and ears.

"...I'm still working with them. Right now Figaro's the most powerful nation in the world - they got through the end of the world relatively intact, and they're better equipped to rebuild. Right now we're just trying to stabilize everything, make sure everyone at least has some food, clean water, and a roof that won't collapse at the slightest wind. It would be easier if we could bend those stiff-necked rich folk in Jidoor, get them to pay their share, but..." She trailed off and shook her head. "It's not easy, but it's good work. Better than being a dog of the Empire." 

Terra sipped at her drink, eyes downcast. "That's amazing. It must make my quiet life here in Moblitz sound pretty small." 

"Stop that!" Celes said sharply, back straight and eyes forward. "You've already done more than enough for the world. You struck the final blow on Kefka, you were the only one who was able to lead us out of the Tower, you've more than earned a peaceful life with your family." 

"Mog and Sabin were there too," Terra protested. 

"And look at them now. Mog's happy in his cave and Sabin's hunting the world for the biggest thing he can pick up and smash into the ground." 

Terra had to laugh at that, which set off Celes, and soon they were both doubled over and gasping for breath until all the stresses of the past few months had slipped away. 

When they had recovered and Celes had managed to sit up and wipe her eyes, she said "Honestly, Terra, don't feel bad about anything. Tell me about what's happened here, I'll listen." 

"Well," Terra picked herself up and tucked a leg beneath herself, "since I saw you last..." She told Celes about how the garden was growing, Eva's learning to crawl, Perrine and Tilara's newest rivalry, the time Celesh had fallen into the lake and when they fished her out she was holding a fish of her own, how Isabella and Ayrton had killed a wolf, Duane and Katarin's attempts to write a new book for the children to read. 

"...and then last week Sothby ripped his overalls - which I had just repaired - and I'm not sure they're even usable anymore." Terra sighed and sipped at her tea, which was by now on the cool side of warm. "He's nearly outgrown them anyway, all the children have. Even Katarin's skirt is looking a bit shorter than it used to. Next time you come could you maybe bring some new clothes? And spare fabric for repairs."

Celes bit her lip. "That's...difficult."

"Why? The merchant said it was getting expensive, but I thought he was trying to cheat me. If I hadn't needed it so badly - I mean, it's just fabric, isn't it?"

"Right, and we just...don't have the machines to produce as much of it any more." Celes set her cup down with a delicate clink and folded her hands in her lap. "Most of the mills were in the Empire, with a few more in Figaro. From there they took in wool and flax and produced enough fabric to clothe the entire world. But then..."

Terra nodded slowly, beginning to see. "Kefka destroyed Vector and all the Empire's factories."

"Exactly. Then most of the Figaro mills were cannibalized for any part that could possibly be used in agriculture instead, because...well, you lived through that first year. No one wants to go through that ever again. And for awhile it was all right, we had over-produced enough before to last a few years. But now clothes are wearing out, children are growing up, and a yard of wool goes for 15,000 gil," Celes said with a bitter look. "It's not just clothes we need either. Anything made from threads..."

The _Falcon_ creaked in the wind and Terra realised what Celes meant. "Ropes for construction. Rigging. Sails. The _Falcon's_ balloon. Chocobo packs..." She remembered how worn and knotted the cords holding goods on the trader's chocobos had been, far past when they would have been replaced before. She'd assumed they just hadn't gotten around to it yet, but maybe, maybe they couldn't afford to? 

"All the things we took for granted before." Celes gave the sofa she was sitting on an ironic look. It was fine crushed velvet, the seat worn and irreplaceable. "It's not a major crisis yet. Jidoor's managed to convince itself that the latest fashion is for cunningly reworked old fashions, so we've been able to get the few remaining factories to just make the rope we need right now without too much trouble. But that's not going to last forever. Factories take time to set up, and so many mines were shut down after the cataclysm. We've had to pillage all our metal from the wreckage of Kefka's Tower - and the monsters there haven't dispersed." She sighed. "At least we managed to get the Narshe mines running again, so we have coal."

"There must be something we can do," Terra said. "People wore clothes before factories. The ancient queen had that lovely dress, and I'm sure they didn't have factories in the War of the Magi." A thought occurred to her. "For awhile, we could wear skins, couldn't we? Like Gau. Oh, but not for Eva's diapers..."

"We'd drive the wolves to extinction in a few years," Celes said dryly. "Though it might work for you. I'll try to send Gau and Sabin your way, if anyone sees them. But you're right, people used to make it all by hand. We've found some old women who remember how to spin and weave - mostly from Thamasa, they're so isolated they never forgot how - and we're trying to teach everyone else, but so much was lost even before the end...." Her mouth twisted. "I probably can't send you an old woman, but there have been some pamphlets published. I can get you those, and some wool to practice with. Will that do?"

"Oh..." Terra's hands twisted in her lap. She hadn't really thought that she'd have to start making her own cloth by hand, but - well, it didn't seem she had a choice. Moblitz had always been isolated, even moreso now. If even Figaro was struggling to produce enough for its own citizens, there was no way they'd have enough left over for a tiny village of a few children at the edge of the world. There was no getting around it. The world was broken, and until it was completely repaired she had to do this. She straightened her back and faced Celes properly. "Yes, thank you. And whatever tools I'll need."

"Of course. Though...a loom will be hard. We're still trying to work out how to make one that doesn't need a factory to manufacture."

"That...would be a problem." Terra thought about it. Moblitz had always been rural... "I'll ask Katarin if there might be anything left to salvage we haven't thought of yet. I'm not holding out hope, but there might be something." And Katarin might know something about spinning and weaving. It was all right. They could overcome this, just like everything else.

"Good. And if there's not, we'll figure out something. There must be a way, right?" Celes gave Terra an encouraging smile.

"Right!"

\---

As promised, Setzer came back in two months bearing more food, more light construction materials to shore up Moblitz until men could be sent from Figaro to really repair the town, and finally, two packages wrapped in tanned hide. One was small and oddly angled, the other large and round. Terra gave the large one an experimental poke; it gave easily, enveloping the toe of her boot in its soft depths. 

"That's the wool Celes said to bring you. There's a few sheep's worth in there, more than enough to keep you busy for months," Setzer said from behind her. "There's more where that came from, especially if you just start growing your own. Sheep, that is."

"Ah...yes. Thank you." She couldn't say she hadn't thought about raising animals as a source of meat that didn't try to eat you back, but she'd kept shuffling the matter to the bottom of the heap. If she were completely honest with herself, she was a bit...not frightened, but apprehensive of the idea. She didn't have the faintest idea of how to take care of one animal, let alone a flock of them. At least Katarin and Duane knew something about caring for children! 

"The rest of it," Setzer said, pointing to the smaller package resting awkwardly in Terra's arms, "is all the stuff you need to make the wool into something. Don't ask me how, that's your job now." 

Terra shifted around until the smaller package unwrapped itself, revealing a rectangular frame with an evenly spaced row of nails on the smaller ends, a number of sticks with wooden disks on the ends, one small cone of factory-made yarn, a fish-shaped wooden object with notches on either end, a long flat piece of wood with teeth like a comb, a pair of vicious-looking paddles with spikes on the ends, and two thin, cheaply-bound books, the top one showing a picture of one of the sticks-with-disks wrapped with yarn and the words "Handspinning After the Cataclysm" in strong type with "A Thamasan Grandmother" printed smaller below. More shifting and a panicked grasp to keep the long piece of wood from falling to the ground revealed the second book by the same author, this one showing a larger rectangular frame with fabric in the middle and the title "Handweaving After the Cataclysm". 

She regarded the entire package with a sense of distant trepidation. 

"Need help carrying any of that?" Setzer asked.

"If you'd grab the wool..." Terra answered, trying to re-close the package before giving up and just clutching the entire thing closer to her chest. Setzer obliged, and together they were able to get all the materials to the house above the caves, where Terra was happy to dump the tools on the chipped and cracked table by the broken chair that had somehow missed becoming firewood. They'd already moved the rest of the supplies to the only other standing house, now the children were either tending the garden or running around screaming under Isabella's watchful eye. 

"I suppose that's all, then. Is there anything you'd like from us, before you go?" she asked Setzer. He generally didn't, too eager to get back to the skies, but it was polite to ask.

He didn't, and took that happy opportunity to excuse himself before Ayrton could finish pinning the beans and rush over to question him about airships. The _Falcon_ took off with a great blast of wind and a nearly-imperceptible dip of Ayrton's head. Terra grabbed the books, leaving the rest as mysteries to be uncovered later, and went to go break up Perrine and Celesh's latest fight. 

After the fight there was Tilara tripping and hitting Ayrton with the hoe, then crying when he snapped at her for it, Eva crawling off inside the relic shop-turned shed when no one was looking and causing a panic, Isabella sulking for no adequately defined reason, and for one reason and another it was hours before Terra could sit down in the shade of the former relic shop and start paging through the books. 

She started with Handweaving, which told her in the first sentence that if she was, "like so many people nowadays, completely unaware of the process of getting fabric beyond going to the general store", she should first read Handspinning. Feeling a bit condescended to, she opened the other book. 

It opened with what was probably supposed to be an upbeat note about the necessity for making one's own thread in these dark times, and an entreaty to "always, always keep your spindle close at hand! Remember, reader, that you are endeavouring to replace machines that worked for 20 hours without a break, spinning thousands of threads at once. None of us can hope to replicate that amount of production, but with a length here and there, added throughout the day, you may provide for your families, and with enough practice and skill make extra to be sold or traded." It then went on to talk about the wonderful sense of peace and accomplishment one could get out of all this toil. 

Terra hoped Edgar would get the factories running again soon. 

The book went on to talk about how this was something the entire family could help with, from the youngest children to the oldest, and getting everyone in it was vital anyway, because "the old rule says three combers to one spinner, and three spinners to one weaver." Well, that was one way to occupy the children when they had too many free hands. Terra worried for their education, though.

The book proper started with a full chapter on wool, it apparently being the easiest place to start. It all came down to twisting bits of wool together to make thread, then twisting those threads together to make yarn; this all possible because wool was rough and liked to cling to itself - the assertion made Terra frown and wonder about silk. Then followed an entire chapter on sheep breeds, more than ever seemed necessary for a well-organized world. Figaro Fat-Tail, Nikean, Zozo Mountain Black, Imperial, Imperial Red, Thamasan Down, Mottled Velt...the list went on and on. The Figaro Fat-Tail was the most common in the new world, followed by the Zozo Mountain Black: both were hardy foragers that didn't take much human care and had strong, durable fleeces. Easy advantages in a world that was only recently beginning to grow again.

A shadow fell across the page and Terra looked up, blinking against the change in light. Duane was standing there, hands in his pockets, leaning over her with a curious look. "Everyone else's already gone inside," he said. "It's blazing out here. Aren't you coming?"

It was hot, now that she noticed. Her hair was sticking to her face and her back hurt from being bent over the book. "It's that time already? I suppose there were no crises while I was reading?" Terra asked while she stood up and rubbed at her back.

"No more than normal," Duane replied. "Interesting book?"

"Useful book," Terra said as they headed inside. "All about what we're going to do to make fabric now." 

"My ma used to do that sort of thing." He stared off into the distance, then shook his head and roughly dragged a sleeves across his face. "A-anyway, she stopped when merchants started making more regular trips across the Velt and she could just buy from them instead. Easier." 

"Did you ever help her?"

"I helped comb the wool, if that's what you want. Anything past that you're on your own." 

"If you have any idea what to do with this," Terra said as she opened up the large leather package, "I'd very much appreciate it." 

Inside where three large bundles of wool, two yellow-white and one a fine blue-grey, along with a heavy, strong sort of scent. Not pleasant, but not awful either, it was just...strong. "Ah, the smell of the farm," Terra said, rather dubiously.

"My old man used to say that was just a fancy way of saying 'the smell of shit'," Duane said. "Er, sorry about the language."

"Don't let the kids hear it." Terra poked at the topmost wool bundle. It seemed to be wrapped up on itself somehow... She checked the book and found the section all about what to do with a fleece fresh off the sheep. "It says here we're supposed to unwrap the fleece, lay it out, then divide it into parts." The book also said that properly sorting a fleece took "a lifetime's worth of knowledge, now disappearing from this world," but Terra decided to ignore that part.

They set about untwisting the long hank of wool from around the rest of the bundle and carefully spreading the entire fleece out on the cleanest part of the floor they could find. 

It fell apart almost instantly. 

What they had in the end was a mess of locks, each one filled with sand and scrub brush. Duane picked one out of the pile, dragging an arms length more behind it, and played with it. "It's not like what ma had when I was a kid. It's more...triangular? There's all this fluff at the bottom."

Terra shrugged. "It's probably supposed to be like that." 

"Katarin wants to know what's taking you so long, everyone else is already settled down and the kids are practising and what are you doing?" Celesh said as she popped out of the stairwell with no warning.

"I have to sort this," Terra said, still looking back and forth from the book to the fleece. Some parts were supposed to be coarser or finer? It all looked the same to her. 

Celesh came over and watched them pore over their work. "Smells like sheep," she finally proclaimed.

"That it does. Now, go back and practice your scribing, I've seen that chicken-scratch you call handwriting," Duane said, rather grumpily. "Terra, I think this whole part is a bit different than that part you have over there. It's got more of these rough bits in it." 

Terra reached over and rubbed the lock Duane was holding up between her fingers. It did feel extra coarse, with a few black hairs mixed in with the yellowy-white. "All right, tear that part off and set it aside. I'll try to find the limit of what I have. The book says we need to do this carefully, but I think as long as we have something usable by the end it will work out all right. Celesh, go practice your writing. Duane and I will be along soon."

Celesh didn't go back right away, but hung around watching from the edge of the stairs, until finally Terra shooed her back down to the nice, cool caves. Terra wished she could go too, the room was slowly baking in the hot late afternoon sun. Not even the smashed windows and other holes could provide much of a relief - the air was at a standstill either way. Terra could feel the sweat slipping down her back. She promised herself a cup of water when she was done and set back to sorting.

They ended up with about three piles of wool, from the comparatively finest to the very rough, with a extra pile of locks deemed to filthy to bother with - matted, covered in scrub, covered in feces, just not worth it. "Compost," Terra decided.

"Good idea," Duane said. "Come on, let's get down to the caves already. I'm going to melt up here."

\---

In the caves any education was quickly forgotten in favour of novelty, now matter how much Terra pushed the younger ones back to their schoolwork. Eventually she gave up - clearly no amount of motherly scolding could match the fascination of Duane fiddling with bits of wool. 

"Let's see...this is how I used to do it with my ma," he said, bent over the spiked paddles. "You take a few locks, like so, and put them on the combs," he pushed a few of the very coarse locks down onto the spikes, the triangular tip facing out, "then you just comb them back and forth, like this." He pressed the other paddle - the comb - into the wool on the first one, face down, and combed it out. Some wool transferred over, some stayed on the first comb, but both sides began to fluff out, accompanied by a shower of sand and dried grass. "You just keep doing it like this for a few passes," he said as he kept up the combing, regularly switching which paddle was on top, "until it's all nice and straight. Then you drag it off slowly and make this nice little nest." He demonstrated, much to the interest of the watching children. 

"There's a lot left over!" Tilara cried. Indeed, a large mass of wool was left on the comb, which seemed to be a dreadful waste. 

Terra paged through the book for answers. "It says here... 'If you, like many people, have a the wool of a Figaro Fat-Tail, know that it grows two coats: one of rough hair suitable for rugs and outerwear, and one of soft, fine wool suitable for more delicate work. The coats should easily separate if you should simply grasp each end and pull firmly on the hair.'" She picked up one of the spare locks and gave it a little tug; it worked just as the book said. "It says you can comb the hair and spin the wool from a cloud, so I think we can just save what's left over."

"It's still pretty full of sand," Duane said, putting the waste aside, "but maybe we can shake some of that out. Now, which of you kids wants to start separating?"

The younger children happily started dragging fluff away from hair, Isabella - and Celesh, when she saw Isabella holding back - refused, and Ayrton declared he was going back to his attempt at an essay. Terra and Katarin ended up crouching next to each other and watching the rest work.

"My mom used to spin, when I was really young," Katarin said softly. "Oh, don't look to me, I never learned. She had a wheel anyway...it was probably still in the attic when the Light of Judgement hit. She used to-" She broke off, her face hidden behind her hair. "S-sorry, look after Eva for me!" With she sprang to her feet and rushed to Terra's room, head ducked and bent double.

Terra glanced at Eva - dragged away from Duane's flying hands to sit in Isabella's lap, so safe - and went after Katarin. 

She was pressed against the wall in Terra's room, back to the door and head resting against the depleted bookshelf. The usual place for anyone that suddenly missed the world that was. Terra came up behind her, trying to keep her footsteps well audible. She'd learned not to sneak up on people like this a long time ago. Katarin's shoulders were shaking, but she wasn't making a sound.

"Katarin?" Terra called quietly. "Do you want me here?"

A brief, smothered noise came from Katarin before she mastered herself by force. "Sorry - sorry, I'll be all right. I'm - just give me a moment." 

Terra made a soft, soothing noise and leaned against the wall behind Katarin, facing the bed so she could keep an eye on the door, but close enough to provide contact. Celesh peeked in, but retreated at Terra's quick gesture. They were all used to it by now.

Eventually Katarin raised her head, the sound of her breath still harsh, but the pacing even. "Sorry," she apologized again, automatically, "it just all hit me again, all at once. That mom and dad - they're gone, they'll never grumble about the old days or scold me for forgetting the mail, or bless Duane and I, or hold Eva...."

"It happens to everyone, sometimes," Terra said. There wasn't anyone in Moblitz who hadn't broken down a few times. Even Terra, as much as she tried to hide it from the children. She didn't have much to miss about the old world, but sometimes she looked across the grey wastes and remembered when it was all beautiful green grass, and the longing stabbed like a dragon's fang.

"I know," Katarin said, sounding resigned. "It just feels like I should be over it by now. Most of the time I am. There's so much work to do, I have a child of my own to raise, not to mention all the little ones, but - I mean, I'm satisfied with what we have. I remember when it was worse."

Terra stroked a bit of Katarin's hair out of her face. Beneath the fall of locks her eyes were red. "We all remember when it was _better_ , too. Except maybe Tilara," she added. 

Katarin made a sound not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. "We just have to keep looking to the future, right? So we can make it all again. You always said that, the first year."

"I did. Do you need me to say it again? I meant it then, and I mean it now." 

"No, I'm all right. Just give me a bit of time alone, so I don't come out sounding like a wreck." She sniffled a little. "Go get to work figuring out how to spin. I'll be along." 

"If you need me, just call," Terra said with her hand on Katarin's arm. Katarin nodded, sprightly enough that Terra took her at her word and left her to sort out her feelings alone. Katarin and Duane could be trusted for that. Any of the other children Terra wouldn't have left for anything short of a house fire. 

But now, there was other work to do. There was always other work to do.

\---

"When your hands are comfortable with the positions indicated, release your left hand and flick the spindle to give it spin. Then, quickly replace your left hand and use it to draw out fibers to add to the yarn."

Terra flicked the spindle and replaced her left hand as directed by the book. The spindle promptly dropped to the floor and rolled under the bed. 

Just like the last three times.

Biting back a sigh Terra retrieved the spindle and tried again. "Be patient!" The book advised. "Though it may seem impossible at first, with time and perseverance you will soon find yourself creating a continuous yarn almost from thin air." Time and perseverance. Right. Terra carefully straightened the twisted fibers at the broken ends and tried again.

This time the spindle rolled under the bed across from her. 

"This is impossible!" She did not throw everything down in a huff. That would be childish. She properly placed spindle and wool on the bed and glared at them, arms crossed. Something so simple, yet so frustrating...it was possible learning a sword had been just as bad, but at least she couldn't _remember_ that. And magic had come as naturally as breathing.

"Keep at it," Katarin called from where she was feeding Eva, who was somehow angry about it. "We all know you can do it." There was a general cheer of agreement that only had a few desultory notes in it. 

Terra did not feel any of that confidence, but picked the spindle up again anyway. As the children's mother, it was her responsibility to see them clothed, fed, and sheltered. Mastering this was for the moment, the way to keep everyone clothed. Setting her mouth in a grim line, she gave the spindle another flick.

Half an hour later, when she mad managed to spin out one body length of thread before it snapped right in the middle, Katarin suggested gently that she take a break. Terra was only too happy to take the suggestion and went to chop wood until she felt better. 

After the woodpile was full it was time for dinner, then clean-up, and finally putting all the children to bed. At that point Terra just had the energy to check the salt in the evaporation barrels before flopping into bed. 

\---

The next day went much the same, though this time Terra was able to spin several lengths at one point - mostly by dint of severe over-twisting. Then the wool slipped away from her and snapped from being far too thin. She repaired the southern fences while cursing the very concept of thread beneath her breath.

\---

On the third day she found a sort of rhythm to it, like slicing a gigantoad's throat after stabbing the stomach, and the spindle's cop grew by three layers before she quite realised what she had done.

It was then Isabella and Perrine decided they wanted to help out Mama. It was easier, now she had an idea of what she was doing, to get them started. By the fourth day all three of them had a sizable amount of yarn, Katarin and Ayrton were convinced to try their hand, and Duane was complaining about not being able to keep up with demand. Terra made a mental note to ask Setzer for more combs. 

\---

After a week of practice and getting used to carrying spindle and wool about everywhere, and after a few adventures in tangles from trying to ply two or more threads together into proper yarn, they finally had a few skeins of wool. Two, to be precise. Which was more than one, as Isabella was fond of reminding people. Certainly more then the zero they'd started with.

They weren't much to look at, by any stretch of the imagination. Some parts were thick, some thin, some parts barely had enough twist in them to hold together, others had so much they felt like wire. All of them were that same yellowy off-white and stank of sheep. 

But Terra couldn't help feeling pride when she looked at them. With this small step she was getting closer to providing new clothes for her children. Not to mention blankets, ropes, fishing nets...everything they needed that industry could no longer provide. She'd be glad when Figaro got back on its feet, but they wouldn't be helpless in the meantime. She'd _done_ it. Just like when she'd hunted down some real meat, when the first vegetables had sprouted in the garden, when she'd killed Humbaba and Kefka. She could protect and provide for the children she loved so much. 

"Mama, what are you doing? You're just standing there." Sothby's voice broke through Terra's haze, and she blinked a little looking down at him.

"Nothing, nothing," she said, holding back the emotion in her voice. "Just thinking about what to do next." 

"Washing it, right?" 

"Right, first we wash them in hot water. Then we turn them into cloth for everyone to use." Terra gathered up the two skeins and the laundry bucket, along with the firestriker she had to use for fire now. "Do you want to watch?"

"Mmmmmmmmmmm..." Sothby screwed up his face, clearly torn between helping Mama and playing. "Maybe for awhile?" He hazarded.

"All right, you can help me put them in. Then go weed the garden before playing, got it?"

"But Mama-!"

"No buts. Now, come along!"

\---

"They turned white..." Terra still couldn't quite believe it. 

"They sure did," Ayrton agreed, sounding just as stunned.

The two lumpy skeins hung with the sheets on the long laundry bar they had set up on the other side of the relic shop from the garden. Somehow, in the water, they had transformed from a sickly yellow-white to...still off-white, but a handsome cream. They'd lost some of the stickiness that had been driving Terra and the others all mad trying to spin it, too. It was a nearly unbelievable transformation.

"So how much of this do we really need, anyway?" Ayrton asked. "How much makes a suit, or a blanket, or..."

"More than what we have," Terra replied firmly. "So keep at it." She slipped her own spindle off her belt and attached a bit of wool from her bag. Ayrton grumbled and took out his own. As much as he complained, he was actually getting very good at it, better than Terra. She could never quite get her thread thin or smooth enough.

This time, before she could even start to try, she was interrupted by an eight-year old barrelling into her waist. "Wait, Mama! Wait!"

"Perrine!" Terra snapped the spindle back to her right hand and rested her left on Perrine's head. "What is it?"

"Before you do that, teach me how to use a sword!" 

Terra sighed. It was Perrine's latest obsession; she wanted to be a sword-wielding heroine just like Celes...and Mama, she would always add as an afterthought. Terra couldn't think of any logical reason for her children to not learn how to defend themselves...she just didn't like the idea of any of them hacking at things with a sword. She could do that. They should...do what children did, whatever that was. But she could never quite find the words to make them understand. "Perrine," she started, "I know you want to, but..."

"But what?" Perrine looked up with wide, pleading eyes. 

"But you're too little!" Ayrton interrupted. "If you went and attacked a wolf, he'd eat you right up without even noticing! Leave the fighting to the big people." 

"I'm plenty big! I'm bigger than Celesh and she's 10!" Perrine poked her head around Terra's side so she could stick her tongue out at Ayrton, a gesture he was too happy to return.

"Children..." Terra said her in best 'don't exasperate Mama' voice. "Don't stick your tongues out. Ayrton, go do something useful."

"But I am," he said, showing off his spinning - which broke as soon as he had spoken. "Whoops!" 

"Then go do it with Isabella and keep her company," Terra said as he scrambled to pick up and dust off his spindle. He made an annoyed noise, but went on his way with no other complaint. Terra turned back to Perrine, still wrapped around her waist. "Now, Perrine...."

"I AM big enough, aren't I? Right? If you teach me then I'll go hunt the wolves and musshus and bandits for you and we'll never have to worry about the fences again!" 

Terra stroked at her brown pigtails. Hunting bandits? Terra remembered defending Narshe. The Imperial Guards had come, marching up in steady waves, closer and closer until one was right in front of her and she drove her sword into his neck. It had gotten stuck, and he'd screamed when she tried to pull it out, jerking and twisting until he couldn't scream and just gurgled but her sword still wouldn't come _out_ \- 

Her fingers tightened in Perrine's hair.

"Perrine, listen. I fought so that none of you would have to. So you, so everyone, could go outside and live without fear. I had to do it. But..." She searched for words, something that would convey the numb, aching fear and horror of battle without terrifying her little girl. 

They wouldn't come. "It's nothing something I ever wanted for any of you," she said lamely. "Especially not hurting _people_. I don't want you to be the kind of person who likes that." An echo of crackling fire and insane laughter drifted across her mind and Terra clamped it down. "I want you to build a peaceful and happy future, to be able to _create_ , not destroy. Understand?"

Perrine looked doubtful. "But someone needs to fight the monsters, right, Mama?"

"Most of the monsters are dying anyway, Perrine. They can't survive without magic. We don't see the pyramids around anymore, do we? By the time you're big there probably won't be any left, and maybe we'll have a nice big city no wild animals will want to come into. Like we used to have." 

"We won't have anything like that again!" Perrine's words came out in a choked cry and she buried her face in Terra's stomach. "Ever again!"

"Sssh, yes we will," Terra stroked at her hair again. "We'll have normal houses and running water and clocks and fine white flour. We'll build it all up again with our own hands. I promise." Someday they'd have plenty of food and nice clothes and medicine and she'd throw the Ultima Weapon into the ocean depths. Someday. "I _promise_."

\--- 

Later, when they had a nice pile of wool yarn and the children were getting antsy about doing something with it, Terra walked into the other house after a hunt to find Katarin stringing the factory-produced yarn across the rectangular frame Setzer had brought by a month ago. She walked up behind Katarin and watched for a bit, as Katarin pulled the factory yarn up across the frame, around a nail at the top, and down again until the entire thing was crossed by vertical lines. The effect was like the diagram Terra had seen in the Handweaving book, the one she had barely been able to glance at over the past weeks. "Oh, are you warping?"

Katarin nearly jumped straight into the air. She waved off Terra's apologies when she came down again, breathing hard and hand over her heart. "Goddess and Demon, Terra, it's fine, but don't sneak up on me like that!" 

"I'm sorry," Terra apologized again. Privately she was never quite sure how to feel about people swearing by the forces she and her friends had killed, but never worked up the nerve to ask them to stop. 

"It's fine, it's fine. Just startled me." Katarin settled herself again and tested the tension of the warp. "I figure we've spun enough to make something, so I should. I wouldn't trust anything we've made so far as warp, but that's probably why your friend gave us this." 

Terra sat down on the floor next to Katarin. "You know how to weave?" she asked, feeling both amazed and a little cheated that Katarin hadn't seen fit to tell any of them this before. 

"My mom taught me the basics - just the most basic basics - when I was little." There was a faint tremble in Katarin's voice, but her hands were steady as she wrapped some of their homemade yarn around the fish-shaped piece of wood - the shuttle, Terra knew to call it now. "The book helped with the rest. Sorry for not mentioning anything earlier, but I thought I'd do it in private, then bring it out when it was finished and surprise everyone. I hoped you'd all be impressed." 

"I'm impressed already," Terra said. Katarin ducked her head and mumbled something about it being nothing, really, in the way Terra knew was just modesty. "So could you teach me how it works?"

"Of course! Here..." Katarin went off in a long and rambling explanation that involved a lot of words their little toy loom didn't have. Heddles, treadles, sheds and battens all swirled around Terra's head, and all she really got out of it was that in order to weave you worked the flat piece of wood - the beater - through the warp, raised some threads above the others, pushed the shuttle through, and then used the beater to press the weft down with the rest. Then you did it all again with different threads. 

Katarin shoved the loom and its lumpy, partially-woven fabric at Terra. "Here, you try!" 

"Me?" It was inevitable, she supposed, and it hadn't looked that hard when Katarin was doing it... She picked up the shuttle and beater with a vague sense of trepidation and arranged her legs in lieu of doing something useful. 

"Just do it exactly like I did, it's not hard." Katarin watched as Terra wove the beater through the warp with the shuttle after it and pulled the weft tight. "Careful, you don't want to pull too hard or you'll weave yourself a triangle. Try to match what I was doing." Terra tugged at the uneven thread until it loosened and tried again, and then again, until it finally seemed to be not too tight or too loose. 

"You got it! Now just go back the other way," Katarin said. "I'll go salt that meat you just brought in, then."

"I can do it-" Terra tried to get up, only to be waved off by Katarin.

"It's no trouble. You do more than enough for us as it is, so you sit there and do something relaxing while I get blood all over me for once, all right?" She dragged the toads and one deer corpse back to storage before Terra could raise another protest.

Terra settled herself down again, not sure how to feel. She had always stored the meat. Before she had been the only one capable to casting Blizzara to freeze it all in ice - telling the children it was just because they were below ground to keep from alarming them - after magic had gone and they'd switched to salt and she'd kept doing it because she was doing all the hunting anyway. But surely Katarin and Duane had taken care of it while she was fighting Kefka... She settled herself again and went back to weaving. Over, under, over, under....

It was peaceful. Repetitive, but more pleasantly so than swinging a sword. And it was exciting to watch real fabric grow under her fingers, using yarn she and the children had made themselves, all the way from the sheep. It wasn't particularly _good_ fabric, being scratchy and puffy and despite all of Terra's attempts to maintain an even tension she kept pulling just a bit too hard and making the fabric pucker in and out...but it was theirs. 

"Terra?" Katarin called out, making the woman in question jump. 

"What is it? You know, I think I'm getting the hang of this. It's going a lot faster." 

Katarin didn't reply right away, and when she did her voice was quiet. "Do you...ever get tired of supporting us all the time?" 

"Huh?" 

"I mean, you do so much for us all, and I've never seen you cry over the old world or stare at the wall for hours. You work yourself to exhaustion every day and I just...it feels like we're not doing enough for you in return." 

"You're doing fine, Katarin," Terra said firmly. "I have nothing to miss about the old world, and I like helping create a future in this one. It's hard work, but I'm glad to do it." The harder she worked the less she had to worry about dreams at night, and the more she lived in Moblitz the more the dreams that did get through were filled with oceans and her children instead of fire and Kefka. "Besides," she added, her voice light, "you gave me the strength to continue living, even when I was about to fade away. I can't repay that."

"Still..." Katarin came out of the storeroom, folding the bloody apron over her arm. "You've carried us all this way. I don't know what Duane and I would've done if you hadn't come along. I just..."

"Don't worry about it," Terra smiled at Katarin and refused to look away until she got one in return. "We'll call it even, all right? Now come over here and we'll finish this."

\---

More quickly than Terra could have imagined from how long it took to make the yarn, their fabric filled the loom and had to be cut free. The book said to "start by tying neatly the warps sticking out - hemming may be undertaken later" and that is what they did. At last, Terra and Katarin held in their hands real fabric.

Terra poked at it. "Now what do we do?"

"Traditionally you first weave a dishcloth..." Katarin trailed off. "But those were always of linen or hemp." 

"Well," Terra said as she picked up all the materials. "Let's go back to the caves and see if we can think of something."

They discussed possibilities as they walked the short distance back. "An entirely new bottom for Sothby's pants?" Katarin suggested. 

"I'm not even sure that would work. I'm this close to just letting him run around naked. Him and Tilara." 

"Terra! That's not appropriate!" Katarin's tone was a good attempt as scandalized, but she couldn't keep the laughter out. 

"I mean it, I will!" Terra was laughing too as they descended and were immediately set upon by Celesh and Tilara, who had been cleaning up the caves and watching Eva and were eager for a distraction. They were both thrilled to be the first to see the completed - whatever it was, and took great pride in tugging and handling the piece of fabric. 

"It can be a blanket for Eva!" Tilara announced and moved to put her plan into action. She tucked the fabric close around Eva where the baby had been gurgling in her cradle and sat back to admire her work.

Eva wailed and kicked it to the floor, then wailed some more. Katarin scooped her up and comforted her, with lots of pats and "There there, was that hot and itchy? Don't worry, it's gone now! There there..." 

Tilara looked like she wanted to throw a fit too, a fit Terra pre-empted with her own patting. "She can use it as an over-blanket in the winter. Or we can make a lot more and piece them together to make an adult blanket. It's fine, really," she said, and it seemed to help. 

"It'll be hard if we have to sew everything together," Celesh said with a wrinkled nose. 

"What we really need is a full-size loom, like my mom used to have," Katarin said, still bouncing the miserable Eva. "It was two feet across and you could double-warp it to make even bigger things."

An uncomfortable memory came to Terra, of Celes saying they still didn't know how to make a good loom that didn't require a factory in the first place. But surely there must have been a way to make blankets before factories.... "I'll look at the book and see if it knows anything. Otherwise we'll ask Setzer when he comes by again." She wished they still had the carrier pigeons so she could just summon Setzer whenever they needed him, but all of those had died in the cataclysm and no one left in Moblitz had any idea how to train new ones. 

"We should grow flax too!" Tilara exclaimed. "The book has how to process it, and then we can make dishclothes. You just grow it and rot it and beat it and scrape it and get it all nice and even and then you can spin it!"

"That's all...?" Terra murmured. She wasn't sure if that was more or less work than getting a flock of sheep. "Well, we'll think about it."

When was Edgar going to get the factories working again?

\---

Later still, when they had somehow managed to go through a large portion of the first fleece (made possible by Duane teaching Celesh how to comb and having her do nothing but that and watch Eva) and had the beginnings of either a blanket or a tunic going, the _Falcon_ appeared once more.

This time Celes was striding across the waste like it was a battlefield before Terra could shake the laundry suds off her hands. She left Duane, Sothby, and Isabella behind to finish and ran to greet her friend, wiping her hands on her increasingly-tattered dress as she did. 

"Celes! How unexpected!" Terra said when she got there. Usually it was just Setzer who came by, everyone else being busy with their own lives. 

"I wanted to check on how you were doing. Well, I did, and Edgar, Cyan, Locke, Strago and Relm...everyone that's staying on one place. They seem to trust my reports more than Setzer's. His are all: 'Her children mobbed me and I cleaned them out of everything they owned, then gave it back because it wasn't very much. Terra wasn't missing any limbs.'" Celes smiled as she spoke, dry humour lacing her words. 

Terra held back her laughter. "I'll have to have a talk with all of them about gambling," she said as seriously as she could under the circumstances. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Perrine swinging a stick around in what appeared to be an imitation of sword-wielding. 

Celes caught it as well, her face somewhere between affection and an expression Terra couldn't quite read. Terra leaned forward and whispered "Don't take too much notice, you'll just encourage her. She wants to be just like you." 

"Just like me, huh..." The affection was wiped from Celes face, replaced with a flash of melancholy before both were frozen beneath her general's mask. "Anyway, do you mind finding a place where we can talk for a bit? Alone, if possible." 

"Of course," Terra said, wondering what had gotten into Celes. "Everyone's out working this time of day, so we can slip down to the caves for privacy." Turning back to the rest of the launderers, she called out "I'm going to meet with Celes for a bit! Duane, keep an eye on everyone! When you're done there go help out in the garden!" Duane waved acknowledgement and Terra led Celes away, much to Perrine's disappointment.

The caves were still a bit chilly this early in the morning, but Celes had brought along a packet of tea and the coals were still warm from breakfast, so soon Celes was sitting on the edge of one of the beds while Terra practised her spinning between sips of tea. 

"You've gotten pretty good at that," Celes said. "I'm impressed."

"Thanks, though I'm not as good as Isabella or Ayrton," Terra replied, watching the thread spin out thinner and thinner and drafting out more and more fiber to feed it. She still couldn't feel when it was about to start turning backwards and undoing all her hard work. "But we've managed. Just tell Edgar to get those factories working again!"

"Oh, he knows. The only problem is that there are so many factories to get going again..." Celes sipped at her tea. "But you're doing all right?"

Terra wound the miraculously unbroken yarn onto the spindle. "Well enough. We're all still alive, and nothing too terrible has happened since you were last here. We could use a bigger loom and more combs, as long as we're on the subject." 

"Understood. Oh yes, I saw Sabin and Gau in Serpent's Mouth travelling with a caravan, and they said they had something for you. It seemed big, but they wouldn't give me any details." 

"Knowing Sabin and Gau, it's hides still attached to a bear."

"Quite possible." Celes rolled the cracked mug between her hands. "Terra...do you remember when we met in Narshe? It was our first meeting, for you." 

"Yes...you said you were a Magitek Knight and that's why you could use magic." Terra stopped her spinning and watched Celes carefully. Something felt...off. Celes' eyes were downcast, and her mouth out of its usual firm line.

"You asked me if I could feel love."

"...honestly, I was more worried if I could. I was looking for reassurance from everyone I met." Terra hesitated for a bit, then pushed on. "Is this about you and Locke?"

"Not exactly." Celes still wasn't looking directly at Terra. "We did split up for a bit - it was mutual, he needed a bit more time to come to terms with Rachel's death. And I..." She took another sip of tea. "Kefka was driven mad by Magitek infusion. All throughout our battle, I wondered if - if I was the same way. All I ever knew was how to fight and destroy, and even now..."

"You're not!" Terra interrupted. "You've never been anything like Kefka."

Celes laughed without humour. "That's what I clung to. I wasn't driven mad, I was still myself, my mind was my own. But then, when the magic faded...I felt cleansed. I felt like I saw clearly for the first time, and looking back on what I did...some of it made sense, and some of it I didn't understand." 

Terra shifted uncomfortably. Losing her magic had been like dying - it had been dying. When she came back there was an empty part of her that was only able to be filled with her children and friends. Magic had been terrifying and wonderful, had split her apart from humanity and made her doubt her existence - but it hadn't driven her mad. 

Celes continued. "I only barely remember being without magic, I was infused so young. And now I don't know what I am without it."

"You're Celes, of course," Terra said. _This_ she knew. "You're my good friend and a capable general. Magic didn't do that." 

"You're right...you're right." Celes still sounded hesitant. "I suppose I'm just confused now, if what I felt was really love or not."

'Of course it was' Terra wanted to exclaim, but held herself back and forced herself to say something more moderate. Just because she'd never doubted this love she felt- "If it really was, then you'll still feel it when you've gotten yourself sorted out. If it wasn't, then I know you _can_ feel love. It's just a matter of waiting and finding someone. You're still young, it will come in time." Even now, General Leo's words were comforting. 

"'Just be patient', huh?" With that she finally met Terra's eyes. "It's not bad advice, I suppose." 

"I know a bit what it's like," Terra said, and left it at that. The hard part seemed to be over, so she took out her spinning again. 

Celes watched her quietly. "Is that...fun?" She finally asked.

"Not really. But its necessary." Terra bit back a curse when the spindle fell. "And when it works...it's nice to be doing something productive, instead of just burning things down." 

Celes nodded. "I understand."

They were the same in that. 

\---

"Tilara!" Terra snapped, " _Never_ poke someone with a needle! It's for fabric only!"

"But he..." 

"No excuses! Go sit in my room until you can behave!" Terra frowned at Tilara every step of the girl's slow, sulking path. "Stop that, Sothby," she added without turning around, and heard his tongue zip back into his mouth. Why were they so _difficult_? She was just teaching them how to sew - they'd finally decided to make bags out of a few of their bits of cloth. Celesh was weaving straps under Katarin's watchful eye, and Terra was teaching the little ones to sew the bags up properly. Or she would, if they'd expel whatever wild mood had overtaken them and settle down. 

Sighing, Terra sat down again and tried to show Sothby how to properly do a whip stitch and ignore Eva's fussing, Katarin has it under control, _pay attention_. 

It was a relief when Perrine rushed down the stairs to say that a chocobo caravan had arrived, and Mama's friends were asking for her. Finally, Sabin and Gau had arrived. Terra was excited enough to see them she didn't even bother to check that Tilara was staying where she should be and just rushed out herself, the children crowding around her heels.

"Sabin! Gau!" 

"Terra!" Sabin picked Terra up and spun her around over her laughing protests. The children swarmed him next and somehow Terra ended up perched on one broad shoulder, with Sothby, Tilara, and Perrine scrambling up the other side and Celesh and Isabella in the back, trying to pretend they were too grown-up to use Sabin as a climbing-frame. Sabin just waved at them and rolled his head back to look at Terra. "You and the kids look well, just like Celes said. Glad to see it."

"You too," Terra replied. Somehow, he seemed to have gotten even bigger and furrier on his travels, helped by the pelt slung over his shoulders like a cape. "You grew a beard?" It scratched at her legs.

"Yeah, once Edgar wasn't on me to keep shaving I stopped bothering. You like it?"

"It's itchy!" Sothby piped up, with Tilara not far behind.

"Who asked you little rascals?" Sabin shook his arm, swinging the cheerfully shrieking children around wildly. Terra privately agreed with Sothby, but it did suit Sabin. Just a little bit more and he would turn into a bear, just like she'd thought he was when they'd first met. 

"Teerraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Gau left off pestering the chocobos and loped over to the group, to the traders' evident relief. Mog fluttered along behind him in slow loops. "Gau bring present! Show Terra! Show present! Come!" He grabbed her feet and started tugging her straight off Sabin's shoulder, making them all sway dangerously.

"Whoa! Wait, Gau! Just let me-" 

It was too late. With a sense of inevitability Terra slipped off Sabin, who tried and failed to hold on, swinging the children around, which shifted the balance of the human tower, and with a crash they all ended up in the dirt. 

Terra scrambled up from where she had rolled, head full of scraped and crying children. "Tilara! Sothby! Perrine! Are you all right?" 

"Awoo, Sabin! Get off Gau!" 

"You're the one that caused this, you can take it!" 

"Awoooo...."

Sabin was flat on his back, the children crushed to his chest and Gau flopped out beneath him. Sothby and Tilara looked like they weren't sure if they wanted to cry or demand another round. 

Perrine had already decided. "Mr. Sabin, Mr. Sabin! Let's do that again!"

Terra sighed and went over to collect the children. None of them were hurt, thanks to Sabin's reflexes, but Mama making a fuss was enough to tilt Tilara's decision to 'cry'. Sabin and Gau sorted themselves out, and Mog landed right in front of them, his wings having allowed him to avoid the entire disaster. "We do have a present for you, Miss Terra," he said, "and if you just-kupopo!" 

Tilara had very quickly calculated crying into Mama's shoulder versus crying into soft moogle fur and attacked. Sothby and Perrine followed suit, bestowing more pets and cuddles on Mog than he seemed to know what to do with. He gave Terra a slightly helpless look. 

"Now children, be gentle with Mog. He isn't a toy," Terra scolded, but gently. Mog seemed to be bearing up all right, his expression changed to stoic endurance. The kids made loud, if muffled noises of assent, and at least they had learned to not tug on his wings or pom-pom. 

Gau sidled up to her on all fours, his expression hang-dog. "Sorry Gau sorry. Gau wanted show present. Sorry." 

"Well, you can show me now," Terra said as she stood up and dusted herself off. "It's that over there, isn't it?" Two chocobos were hitched to a cart piled high with skins and pelts, skins that had the look of something else underneath them. It wasn't part of the normal caravan goods, so it was hard to miss.

"Sure!" Sabin took over. "We found it in Narshe-"

" _I_ found it!" Mog called from under the children.

"-Mog found it first and called Gau and me over for a look. I remembered Edgar saying Celes said you needed stuff like this, so we packed it up best we could and hitched ourselves to the first caravan going south." He walked over to the cart and threw back a few of the skins. "Ta-dah!"

Under the skins were...planks of wood, some wrapped in string for no purpose Terra could discern. One plank was wrapped in intricately-patterned cloth under the string, but the string seemed to be attached to rocks. "Wood and cloth?"

"I'm pretty sure it's a loom. One of those nice big ones you can make blankets on. See, whoever left it was right in the middle of making something." Sabin pointed at the cloth under the string. "We found a bunch of extra thread too. You'll see how it is when we get it set up." 

"Whoever left it..." It was too much to hope they'd just evacuated. Monsters had rushed into Narshe from the beginning, Mog had said. The chaos and confusion after the end of the world...it had been all too easy to die back then. She pressed her hand against the wood and whispered so softly only a spirit could hear "Sorry, but we need this now," and hoped it would be enough. 

"Right," she said, "let's move this down to the basement. Sabin, you take the bit with rocks. Gau, help me with these planks. Anyone else can pick up what's left." 

Between Terra, Sabin, and Gau the heavier parts were quickly moved to the basement of the spare house, with the children and Mog taking the thread and hides - which were also part of the present. "Good for wearing!" Gau said, and Terra couldn't disagree. 

Once there Sabin turned out to have the foresight to have paid attention while they had been dissembling it, and under his direction the frame took shape again. The bar with the cloth and rocks went on top, with the rocks hanging just above the ground. It seemed there was a sort of crank so the finished cloth could be wound around the bar. The string-wrapped rods were attached to the warp and rested on notches carved in the supporting bars. The spare thread was dumped on the floor around the loom. 

Terra considered it. The basic principles seemed to be the same, at least. But what should they do about the cloth already on there? "Should we cut it off?"

"Don't see how it makes much difference one way or the other..." Sabin said, scratching at his beard.

"Well, it's already warped how it is," Katarin said, coming up suddenly from behind, Eva in one arm. "See those bars? Those are the heddles, and if you want to make anything in a different pattern on this you'll have to re-thread the warp through them again." She pointed at the bars wrapped in string, and looking closer Terra could see how every single string ended in a loop one warp thread passed through. "It's a huge pain," Katarin continued, "Mom used to have parties where she and her friends would spend the entire night just warping her loom. But..." She reached up and felt the finished cloth. "This is fancy stuff, and right now we need a lot of plain weave. And it's made with commercial thread and right now...that's more valuable as warp than weft. It might be better to cut it and use it for what we can." 

"I wonder what they were making with it..." Terra felt the cloth herself. It was thick and heavy, with a delicate pattern of interlocking diamonds. It could be a blanket, or maybe one of the famous Narshe outercoats, said to be able to withstand the sharpest blizzard. Whoever made it was skilled, much moreso than Terra. It seemed a shame to leave it undone, but Katarin was right. They couldn't finish it on their own anyway. "For us, I think there's enough there so we can get a dress or tunic."

"So....cut it?" Sabin didn't look like he'd been following the conversation, but he had the gist of it. 

"I don't see how we have a choice," Terra said. "We'll just have to re-warp it ourselves. Children, you can help." Just by looking at the heddles Terra could see why it would take all night. Each bar seemed to have at least a hundred strings, all to make cloth about two feet wide. Threading each loop...they'd have to go by sections. Her eyes hurt already. Not even the kids looked enthused about the prospect, and usually they loved to help. 

"Pretty impressive, though, being able to make this out of wool. You going to start keeping sheep too, Terra?" Sabin asked as Terra and Katarin started cutting the finished cloth free, trying to preserve as much of the warp as they could. 

"Keep...sheep?" The prospect remained daunting. On the other hand, she couldn't keep asking Setzer to fly her wool if she could keep her own flock. Not to mention meat and milk...the children needed milk. "Don't you need dogs for that?" 

"Smart dogs!" Perrine burst in. "They have to herd the sheep and work on their own! My pa had some good ones...before. You need fences and medicine and grass too. You have to take very good care of sheep." 

"That's right," Katarin added as she snipped away the last of the warp. "Your parents used to have a flock. Do you know much about sheep?"

"...not as much as pa," Perrine said, downcast. "He knew everything. But I could help!" 

"Me too!" "Ayrton's family had some too!" Sothby and Tilara joined in.

"But I don't know anything," Terra protested. 

"You could start with a goat," Sabin suggested. "We kept an old nanny back when I was training under Master Duncan. Then you'd at least have milk." He tilted his head like he was remembering something. "Goats will to get out of anything, though. They're troublesome." 

"That's not helping," Terra mumbled. But the problem of milk and easy meat and wool wouldn't go away, no matter how much she put it off. This was just another part of caring for her children, just like making cloth from scratch. "Sabin, if we get a goat, could you teach us how to care for it? And then...I suppose we can get a book about sheep." 

Rebuilding the world was a never-ending effort.

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Forgive me for writing possibly the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written in an exchange. Full disclose: I spin, (I don't weave, yet, but I do knit) so this is really just me screaming "YOU BASTARDS ARE GONNA WANT ME WHEN THE APOCALYPSE COMES!" for thousands of words. It also irritates me that every fantasy novel ever forgets how incredibly labor-intensive making fabric by hand is. 
> 
> Figaro Fat-Tail is more or less based on the real world Karakul, in case you were wondering. It's a sheep from Central Asia that stores up fat in its rump like a camel - hence the FF6 name. It's primitive, considered to be the first domesticated sheep breed, and the fleece is like described.
> 
> Some quick reference videos, in case anyone wants to see what all this looks like in real life:
> 
> [Combing wool](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGbhEuqyTGo)
> 
> [Drop-spindling with a bottom-whorl spindle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drXid5cT0y8)
> 
> [Warp-weighted loom, similar to the one Terra gets from Narshe. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2bOpcxtD9o) (first commentator is right though, actual Vikings would've put their looms _inside_ , for very obvious reasons.)
> 
> And if you're glad you don't have to produce every single bit of fabric like that, thank the Industrial Revolution. I'm pretty damn glad I can make this my hobby and not my life...


End file.
